glass bones and paper skin
by S.N. Rainsworth
Summary: Jounouchi's never been a smidgeon short of something whole, and Kaiba was never broken to begin with. Except, sometimes, they sort of were. Entirely, irreparably, miserably broken. [S/J, drabble collection]


**a/n:** just your regular kaiba-is-too-attracted-to-blonds-for-his-own-good fic. or something like that. (is this going to be a drabble collection? groans I hope not)

* * *

Mokuba always rags on him for not being normal.

"You need someone in your life, brother," he'll parrot, looking pleadingly at him, wishing (_wanting_) for Seto to go out and have the life he would have years ago. "I mean, you're holed up in your office all day with nothing else to do but work, and that can drive a man crazy!" The _look at Gozaburo_ is unsaid, but Seto hears it, loud and clear, as steady as his own heartbeat.

"I'm fine," Seto used to say. Now, all he does is stare at Mokuba, at the growingly sharp lines of his jaw, at his long limbs just finally beginning to fill in. Now, he has no answer.

Mokuba knows it too. Puts a hand on his arm, pauses for a moment, before pulling Seto into a hug around his middle. Mokuba's too old for hugs, Seto tries to tell him, but the younger won't hear any of it. Now, he barely says anything as he allows himself to be pulled into an embrace.

Warmth blooms near his ribs, where Mokuba's cheek is pressed against. "Where are you going, brother?" he murmurs, tone so desperately sad. "Why are you going somewhere I can't follow?"

And that, Seto finds for all his brilliance and prodigal logic, is something he cannot answer.

Mokuba leaves him alone on most days. Knows that with Seto heading into his senior year of his _wasteful_ high school experience, he can afford to pull away from school and only show up for his awards and graduating degree. His job, his life, is KaibaCorp, and Seto doesn't remember much before that.

It sort of scares him, a little, when he thinks about it. At night, only, when there's no one to see him, when the only thing that touches Seto is the inky darkness of his room. He thinks of growing old, of growing insane, of growing cold and heartless. Perhaps he already has. Seto can see himself as another man (_white hair, a sneer, gold eyes_) and that scares him. More than he likes to admit.

Other things scare him too. The thought of Mokuba's name scrawled across a grave, broken beyond repair. The thought sends shivers through him, because Mokuba is a line into humanity - a link that he's long grasped on to and doesn't plan to let go anytime soon. Mokuba's smiles are like his air - Seto can't breathe, Seto can't _think_ when Mokuba's hurt.

Or the whispers of companionship that comes from all sides, when he's done obviously nothing to deserve it. Of a warmer, happier life that he could create from his own - a _chance_, in all essence of the word, to begin something else. Maybe that's what Mokuba wants from him. To make friends. Seto doesn't understand the meaning of that little word, and it may _- may_ - scare him. Just a bit.

(And the thing that scares Seto most, that he pushes farthest into his mind because god he doesn't want to acknowledge the thought at _all_, is the lingering images of blond hair and amber eyes and cupid's-bow lips. Images that bring on unwarranted heat, sparks igniting in his abdomen, images that aren't allowed to turn into thoughts in fear of what they could bring. Seto usually doesn't think about this, but sometimes they pop up just as soon as he's slipping into the unconscious realm of sleep, taunting him. He never remembers them later on.)

It's often cold when Seto goes to sleep, in his empty room, but it's always a burning heat coursing through his veins that wakes him up.

/

Jounouchi is all essence. Jounouchi _bothers_ him in a way he didn't know he could be bothered. They're too different - their opinions, voices, lives, it clashes. Jounouchi and Seto are broken keys in the orchestra that's life, something unwelcomed and unnerving - and if heard, would be like the screeching of tires of in your ears or nails down the blackboard. Setting your hair on end. Goosebumps.

The blond sneers at him like he's better - not in status, power, or money, even though Seto is superior in that sense as well - but in the sense of his closely handled web of friends, of his support group, of the love that he receives where Seto doesn't. And it _irks_ him because Seto _knows_ Jounouchi is the better man there. Seto wants to take him down a peg or two all the time because of it. Knock him off his snooty nose-in-the-air pedestal.

He wonders if that's how Jounouchi feels about it.

Almost immediately, Seto lets go of that thought. He doesn't _think_ about Jounouchi.

(Except he does, thinks about his blond hair and amber eyes and cupid's-bow lips, thinks about it until it's a lingering image in his subconscious.)

Jounouchi snorts at him as they pass by in the hall. Not at Seto, but he makes a wise crack anyway, and Jounouchi replied back in kind.

If Seto finds the spark in his eyes similar to his own, he doesn't think about it anymore.

/

He remembers, Seto does. He remembers when he was young and desperate with _my parents our gone_ and _our parents are gone_ and _mokubamokubamokuba are we going to be torn apart?_ And at the time, when family was his only thing, he couldn't risk that. Mokuba was everything.

Mokuba still _is_ everything, something prods at him in his mind, Mokuba will always be everything.

Because Mokuba reminds him, Seto thinks as he runs a hand through his hair. Mokuba reminds him of who he was before he wasn't. And that's the most important thing.

(Actually, no. Mokuba is him, Seto-the-big-brother, Seto-the-goalie, Seto-the-one-who-stayed-up-all-night-to-chase-away -monsters-in-the-dark. Except now Mokuba sleeps comfortably, and it's Seto's monsters that are under the bed.)

/

Seto sees Jounouchi for the first time.

That statement isn't exactly correct, no. He's seen Jounouchi before many times - in the locker rooms, in the hallways, across a dueling stadium. But he's never really seen Jounouchi.

The other man - no longer a teenager, they've grown out of their senior years - leans back against a brick wall outside an eating establishment, one that Seto knows is popular with kids Mokuba's age. He's wearing a dirty apron and has a cigarette in his mouth, inhaling lightly on it before his eyes flicker up toward Seto's.

It's a moment, before Jounouchi takes out his cigarette from between his lips, and Seto is inexplicably drawn to the "o" of his mouth, the curling smoke from it's corners, the wariness in his molten eyes.

"Kaib'," he murmurs in greeting, like Seto's an old friend.

He doesn't know why he does it, but Seto nods back and instead of a cutting reply, he simply says, "Jou."

Jounouchi smirks at him, cigarette still in mouth, but it's something more akin to a smile.

Something inside Seto eases up. They were never in harmony, but their discord sounded more like a heaven's choir and - sometimes - nothing else in the world could come close.

/


End file.
